When his stamina started to wane David Beckham attempted to reinvent himself as a deep-lying creative midfielder, who would sit in front of the defence – a sort of pre-emptive libero – pinging passes around the place like a coarse fisherman laying ground bait.

So Terry and Cole, at least, must have been amazed by what they witnessed on Sunday, when Liverpool sent out Carragher to act as a sort of libero alongside the man-markers Martin Skrtel and Daniel Agger, with Martin Kelly and Glen Johnson pushed up the flanks.